Nostalgia for a Camera

Yesterday I was writing about how we sometimes want everything new and refreshed if not replaced. But we have a strong nostalgia for the past way of doing things. People collect tintypes and old photos, even if they are of people or places they never knew. People collect LPs, swearing they sound different (or that changing the record is part of the charm or that the cover art and liner notes in that large size are incredible).

It's been all over the news that Polaroid is going to discontinue its instant film. There was a piece in The Times, I think, and one on CBS Sunday Morning today.

I don't even use film these days and I gave away, finally, my Polaroid Automatic 101 camera that I acquired in 1964 or so during the great downsizing of 2008. I used Freecycle to find a camera collector who took some old digital cameras and wrote me about working on them and then I offered that camera to him. He claimed in an e-mail (I never met him) that he fixed a pinhole in the bellows and worked on it.

But Polaroid film and the ownership of that camera (see above picture for one virtually identical being peddled by an ebay trader) had a great influence on my photography vision as well as my relationship to and desire for gadgetry.

Examples of the photography with that camera are in lots of albums I still have and I have scanned quite a few in the service of online journals and blogs like this. as well as to do various family projects. Today, though, I offer the example below. It is a picture of my brother-in-law in 1967. He is smoking a cigarette in my parents' home. He did not yet have children. He was a lieutenant in the Air Force, if I'm not mistaken. I do think there is a difference in the colors, the skin tones especially, in these old prints developed instantly with a package of emulsions given sixty seconds to do their work after being triggered by compression between stainless steel rollers.


That camera! It was top of the line (trimmed with leather and stainless steel). I had two lens adapters with gadgets to put over the viewfinder to make close-ups or portraits. I mostly took portraits of people. Especially after my brother-in-law and sister adopted a daughter in 1968 and my sister had her second daughter in 1970. I wanted the camera for months, maybe a year. I got it while I was still in high school, maybe Christmas 1964. My mother surprised me with it. I think it blew the Christmas budget. (I think it cost about $120 which was real money then.) I had been cadging Green Stamps (remember those) to try to get one. I had, I think, thirteen books of Green Stamps. I think it took forty or fifty to get one. That Christmas my mother convinced me I'd never get enough of these trading stamps. You got them from retailers, mostly the grocery store, and pasted them in books and there was a catalog of gifts you could get. Anyway, she convinced me it was futile and used the stamps to buy other Christmas presents. And she secretly found the money somewhere to give me the camera. I took so many pictures, finding the money somehow for film and those crazy exploding flash bulbs. (The gadgets I got had an extra plastic diffuser for the flash to soften the explosion for close-ups and portraits.)

I used that camera for a good decade, I think. And I knew all the ins and out. I knew to keep the stainless steel rollers clean and I could load film and pop in flash bulbs with my eyes closed. I pulled the film out with a firm, confident motion. I could count to a minute while taking another picture. I deftly folded the emulsion waste and discarded it. (Much later I would use this waste with an artist friend's help to make artsy transfer prints by using the film to take pictures of slides with a gadget that used a similar film.)

I knew that camera and its limitations and mine. I have had six digital cameras (maybe five, but, I think, six). Sure I know a bit about them and have learned to use some editing capabilities on the computer for the resultant pile of pixels. But I never learned all the ins and outs of those cameras. I never coveted owning them like I did that Polaroid 101. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it means that flat packs of magic film and exploding flashbulbs are things I experienced that the young folks can't begin to understand. I think they probably blow through gadgets before they really learn how to use them. Just as I do today. Time is compressed. But nothing can take that memory away and, now that I've floated my brother-in-law's image on the Internet (probably not for the first time) the Polaroid colors and his dream-like smoker's state take on a new life albeit in pixel-land.

[Ed. Note: Tomorrow is the penultimate day of Holidailies and the writing prompt today is "Your favorite Holidailies post(s) this year (yours or someone else's)." Which is a great prompt as is tomorrow's: "The One Thing I Want for Holidailies 2009" and the last day's, appropriately, "Epiphany." I hope that I can write about some of this in the coming days. I need to do some reading before declaring favorite(s) and I need to work on my idea for epipany to make it sound less, um, bitter. As to what I want for Holidailies 2009, well one always fears making a 'feature creature' out of a bit of programming that is pretty great the way it is.]

Wedding Cake Building

FFP and I went to the dedication of the Norwood Tower on 7th Street as a Texas Historic Place last evening. This wedding cake building was once the tallest building downtown.

We have been busy with activities for our charities, volunteer work, exercise and with the continuing downsizing effort. I'm getting ready to take off after the holiday weekend to Colorado. If all goes well, I'll give away another van load of stuff to my relatives up there and come home with a bunch of digital pictures of squirmy kids who will never look that way again. I bought a new digital camera. If I could have, I would have purchased a Nikon Coolpix 5900 identical to the one I have. And I could have purchased one on ebay I suppose. But I went to the camera store and got as close as I could by buying a Nikon Coolpix P4. Same batteries, same USB cable, lot of the same operation and the same type of memory (SD). Sadly, no viewfinder. My 5900 still works great but we sometimes find both of us want to have the camera. Particularly if I go on a trip without him as I plan to do this time, taking my Dad to see relatives.

Where are the Pictures?

The pictures are in my head. I haven't been taking pictures although I did bring my digital camera. I remember hearing (is it true?) that Indians think photos steal your soul. As a kid, my one other time in Santa Fe, I seem to remember that they would sell you the right to take a picture but I could have made that up.

I promise to take some pictures today.

We drove from Lubbock to Santa Fe. If there isn't much to look at between Austin and Lubbock, there is far less in the drive from Lubbock to the state line. Then the landscape is a little more interesting. There isn't even much livestock or road kill. No animals. No animals killed on the road. I have sucked FFP into road kill spotting but only Firestone and Bridgestone yesterday (strips of tires thrown from trucks) yesterday.

The drive was easy. We had a so-so lunch along the way. We kept the coffee cup full. An Allsups (a popular convenience store gas station out this way) filled it for 59 cents. That's what I'm talking about. There was some special New Mexican wildflower (a low-lying purple one) after state line. There was a lovely derelict church with the NM landscape behind it that I should have taken a picture of. I have a fantasy project of taking pictures of derelict buildings and junk yards across the country. I don't stop, however. One looks forward to the little derelict towns. Because the landscape is relentless. There were many long trains, though, and the long straight road follows the long straight tracks.

When we got to Santa Fe, we found our cheap chain hotel where we are staying one night before going to a hotel near the plaza. We got here really early. We'd sort of forgotten the time change, too. Our cell phones confirmed it, though.

After settling in we went to the Plaza area and spent the day wandering around. We saw some interesting contemporary art. We saw the Indians at Governor's Palace selling jewelry that was lovely. I don't wear much jewelry. It simplifies my life. We had some snacks at the bar at La Fonda while some guys played mariachi-type tunes. We scoped out some high end Men's clothes for FFP but made no purchases. We checked out the hotel where we will stay tomorrow night and FFP made himself a spa appointment. I'm not that into massages and stuff but he loves them. We found a restaurant that had piano music. Made a reservation for eight.

We went to an independent book store and bought a couple of books and sat at (gulp) Starbucks because it was the only coffee shop we found. I've noticed that the demographic here tends to be older than Austin. By a long shot. You'd think you were in a retirement village sometimes. And you sort of are. At Starbucks I just wanted brewed coffee and I wanted to drink it there. My request not to have the stupid paper cup with the cardboard around it was met with chagrin. They provided a cup but said it was 'bigger than tall,' tall being the smallest cup of coffee and the one I ordered. "Do you just want me to fill it to the tall level?" asked the girl. "Um, yes." I think that in spite of all the signs about fair trade and the fact that they sell water that is supposed to give 5 cents a bottle (about the value of the water!) to clean water in the third world, in spite of all that, they don't want to wash dishes but want to fill landfills with their stupid cups. Sounds like a journal of unintended consequences entry when I have time.

Down about Downsizing

A couple of years ago I stuck the camera in a drawer of pens and scissors and such and took a picture. I wish I could tell you that mess is gone, gone, gone. But it's not. All the scissors are from an era when I thought my homemade greeting cards would benefit from those scrapbooking scissors that make different decorative cuts. They didn't.

We are getting rid of stuff, however. When we are filling up the trunk of the car for the thrift store or piling stuff on the sorting table it seems like a lot of stuff. (The sorting table is divided in half. Himself puts things on one half and I use the other. Then, at our convenience, we 'approve' the things and put them in the box for the thrift store or other recipients.) We are processing out lots of stuff this way and every week our recycling pile is huge and our 'pay as you throw' garbage can is stuffed. But when we look around, it looks hopeless.

I get depressed about it. It's not that I mind going through the stuff. It's kind of interesting actually. This week I was shredding old receipts and bank statements and found the receipt for something I'd thrown in the garbage that very day. That was strange.

It's not that I mind trying to find homes for things either . (Although that requires some communication with people that isn't always easy for me.) No, the worst part is that sometimes you feel like you aren't sending the thing to the right home. Should I just throw it away? Is there some specific person I should ask to see if they can use it? Could I sell it? Would it be a perfect thrift store donation? Should I just put it out on the curb and see if someone takes it?

I offered some technical books to old techie friends. This resulting in giving away eight books out of several dozen, one date for listening to jazz with another couple and a couple of lunch dates.

I posted some stuff of the Yahoo group for Austin Freecycle. This is a deal where people post things they will give away or want to acquire for free. I have learned that you give a deadline and then review all the e-mails trying to find a good home for the stuff with someone who might actually pick it up. It is sort of depressing. You offer an old digital camera that needs a battery (the ones I have for it won't take a charge and it uses only special rechargeable ones). And has some other issues. And someone writes that they want it to take pictures of their grandkids for Easter. This weekend. You know they will be disappointed by having to find a battery (if they can afford it and find one) and get it charged by Sunday. I wrote all the issues for each item as clearly as possible. And wrote, as clearly as I could, that I would wait until Thursday evening to decide among the requests. But people don't read that carefully. They fire off a response and say they can pick it up now. I also try not to be too critical of spelling, grammar, etc. One person wants the cameras. She says she is 'a Camera Conasour.' Does bad spelling make a person a bad owner for the cameras? One of the cameras I'm offering I described as an 'antique digital camera.' A guy responded who is a camera collector. It made me wonder whether I should offer him my Polaroid Land 100, a camera I'll never use again but have kept for sentimental reasons. I received that camera for Christmas in the early sixties and took hundreds of shots with it, particularly of my nieces when they were babies. They are 36 and 38 now.

There is entirely too much thought involved in this downsizing thing. And it's getting me down.